Pedro Galavíz, who was named superintendent of the Canutillo Independent School District late Tuesday, said he wants to increase graduation rates and make sure students are ready for college or a career.

Galavíz received a unanimous vote from the district's board.

He said he was looking forward to working with the district as a team.

"This is about the kids and moving forward and having high expectations," Galavíz said. "We need to make sure that we are on target."

Galavíz said that once he is appointed, he will spend the first 90 days getting to know the district and community officials. He also wants to develop an improvement plan for the district. The plan would entail seeing what the priorities are for the district, including having the students ready for college or careers and increasing graduation rates.

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Alex Hinojosa

"One thing I proposed to the board is having a seven-year timeline to hit certain targets by 2020," Galavíz said. "Part of that is hitting high graduation rates and making sure that the students are college and career ready because education is more than just about the STAAR and EOC tests. It's not about El Paso, it's not about Texas. It's about making these kids global."

District board President Armando Rodriguez said: "We felt he will bring the needed change to our district. He comes from one of the top school districts in the state of Texas and has been able to turn schools around. And he's going to be able to bring that experience to the community."

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The district will direct its lawyers to draft a contract with Galavíz and determine his annual salary and starting date. Rodriguez expects the contract to be finalized by Tuesday.

Former Superintendent Damon Murphy was paid an annual salary of $171,000. And interim Superintendent Annette Brigham received an additional $3,000 on top of her annual salary, which is about $105,000, when she was appointed.

It is unknown when Galavíz will start, but Rodriguez said he may start at the end of the school year or in June.

The Canutillo district has been without a superintendent since December, when Murphy resigned under pressure after an audit linked him to the El Paso Independent School District's cheating scandal, then similar problems were found in Canutillo under Murphy.

Trustees then appointed Brigham, associate superintendent of the district, as interim superintendent.

In January, the Texas Education Agency launched an investigation to determine whether Canutillo manipulated the credits of limited-English-speaking students and its special education students.

The investigation found that several students' credits had been manipulated in an effort to cheat federal accountability standards.

That same month, trustees began the search for a new superintendent. The district received interest from about 80 applicants.

In April, the district named the three finalists.

The two other finalists were Ricardo Lopez, currently area superintendent in the Ysleta Independent School District, and James Steinhauser, currently the assistant superintendent for research and evaluation in the EPISD.

Rodriguez said trustees chose Galavíz because he appeared to be a good fit for the district.

Before working at the Round Rock Independent School District, Galavíz began his career in education in 1998 as a teacher at J.W. Runyon Elementary School in the Dallas Independent School District.

Galavíz remained at the Dallas ISD for 10 years, where he became an assistant principal at an elementary school and later became the principal of Hernandez and James B. Bonham elementary schools and Seagoville High School. Galavíz received his doctorate in education from the University of Texas at Austin and his bachelor's and master's from Texas State University in San Marcos.

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